Posts Tagged ‘poker strategy’

Newer Entries »

Early Positional Play In No Limit Texas Hold\’em

Friday, February 19th, 2010

When you choose to play more repeatedly from early position in no limit holdem, it can present more obstacles to your opponents in distinguishing the nature of player you really are. However, it is frequently more pricey to do so, because of the intrinsic risks with having the maximum amount of players to act after you.

We\’ll assume for a moment that you don\’t have a premium hand in early position, since you should probably be raising with that anyway. Rather, you might consider playing suited connectors, A-X suited or a small pair. That\’s quite a range of hands that could be playable from early position which really enlarges the range of hands you could be playing in your opponents mind. You need to be cautious though, because that also means opponents will play back at your often and you need the skills to play well post-flop.

This means players will be reraising you with strong hands, or bluffing back at you and quite correctly too. Also, at a full table you have nine or ten other platyers to act after you, and that could mean up to 20 unknown cards which could make hands better than your own. Usually that will be the case and you will be creating many multi-player confrontations if they don\’t raise you out. So why might you want to raise from early position then?

There is a purpose that good players do this, at least infrequently, and its not only to mix up their plays – that\’s virtually a given. The real reason is to hit a flop in with a hidden hand, so that other opponents will make expensive errors against you because they entirely misread your hand and over-committed chips or cash to the pot. Usually when this happens it\’s a monstrous pot!

What needs to be understood is that the majority of early position hands will cost you money, the design is to keep all those money-losing hands in small pots, not big ones. The professionals understand that in any given session their profits often come from just a a tiny number of of the hands played. But those few wins can be so significant they make up for numerous others losers, and then some.

If you are going to play hands from early position use your reading and pot control skills until that one perfect hand comes up and you pick up a massive pot.

Find the best bonus codes at Bonus Codes Poker where you\’ll find referral codes giving you 100% deposit bonuses up to $600 for all the major sites, plus exclusive freerolls and strategy guides. Still learning the game? Then go download our free poker for beginners ebook to get up to speed and start playing profitably!

Visit Rakeback Solution for the best Rakeback rates and Rakeback Promotions.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Poker | No Comments »

Why Should Should Avoid Limping In Poker Tournaments

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

All players limp now and then for one reason or another in tournaments. Limping seems week, because ordinarily the act of calling waives control of the hand to someone else at the table. But is limping a viable strategy when all of the poker training you hear about online always slants to play more aggressive?

Well you\’ve probably heard this one before, but the answer is of course \”it depends\”. There is to be sure, a strong argument to limp in certain situations. The problem with limping however, is that naive players tend to do it excessively, and from the incorrect position. Repeated limping in early position in online poker tournament is a recipe for losing.

There are two huge factors that make early position limping costly. Players that still have to act can throw a big surprise by re-raising. Oftentimes you will be forced to call a raise because you have committed yourself to a proper mathematical call, with a average strength hand. In the early stages of the tournament you should not really be paying too much attention to mathematically proper calls. You should be giving far more care to preserving your stack and identifying profitable chip up situations.

Don\’t forget that limping with weak hands will also result in the wide majority of flops not helping your hand whatsoever. This gives way to your antagonists taking control of the hand, you getting caught in an expensive bluffing game, or are you having to involve yourself in a challenging decision.

It is possible to use limping to your advantage nonetheless, and this is almost always done when in position or in an effort to set a trap to extract more money when you have a solid hand. Good players in fact, will use this as a tactic with the intention of out-playing their opponents post-flop, while making good use of pot management and player profiling. However, if your starting stack is the usual 1500 chips in an online tournament you\’ll won\’t have a lot of room to pull this off, so strategically, limping is better in order to keep your costs low unless you are deep stacked.

Often when you see players limping when the blinds are low, you can put them on small pairs, suited connectors or ace-rags. If you\’re holding a decent hand like a big pair or big slick, you can often take control by reraising. A continuation bet after the flop will then likely win the pot assuming your oppont misses the flop.

Learn how to play poker, improve your strategies, and find the best poker sites online at Best-Poker-Sites.net. Looking for the highest poker deposit bonuses and rackbacks? Check out Bonus Code Poker

Visit Rakeback Solution for the best Rakeback rates and Rakeback Promotions.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Poker | No Comments »

Learning To Bet Aggressively in Texas Hold\’em

Friday, February 5th, 2010

The amount of pressure that you can constantly direct onto your opponents can oftentimes be measured in parallel with your overall success in poker.

You know this feeling yourself from experience – basically every time someone bets into you. As you well know, it\’s never easy to make a big decision with a marginal hand. In that sense, it is constantly better to be the aggressor in a hand, except of course you are trapping your antagonist. The idea of using aggression is to persuade your opponent to guess incorrectly about what you\’re holding. Whether you want them to fold or call depends on the situation, but you always want him to make a error. Exerting pressure on your opponent encourages errors.

Careful selection of hole cards is a required skill in poker, and if you do it right your aggression will be more effective. If you are discerning enough, you can regularly get away with re-raising your opponent and winning a nice pot without ever revealing your hand, based on your stringent image.

Calling stations in poker are generally losing players, and regularly give up precious chips because of an irrepressible inquisitiveness. You do not want to be a calling station in poker, but you do want to recognize them in order to take money from them in the most effectual way possible. And that is simply value betting your good quality hands in average increments, to keep them in the hand.

The fundamental tenet here is that you want to be the aggressor in the game, but you want to do it against the correct opponents with the correct hands. If your Ace King misses the flop, you should probably still do a continuation bet to keep the pressure on, but after that, you should be using profiling information to decide what to do beyond that.

Download the free book Learn To Play Poker at LearnAboutPoker.com, then visit Billy Kernow\’s site about the Best Online Poker Sites for tips and advice, and exclusive deposit bonuses.

Visit Rakeback Solution for the best Rakeback rates and Rakeback Promotions.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Poker | No Comments »

Minimizing Risk By Managing Poker Pot Sizes

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Every move you make during a hand has an implication on the size of the pot. It\’s critical you keep this in mind because a majority of the confrontations that you are involved in should be small pots compared to your stack size. The point is to avoid getting involved in large pots, unless you are certain you are strongest in the hand.

It is important therefore to look at your actions during a hand and be able to comprehend what the prospective result may be. To clarify, even though you might have the best hand when you bet, you may very well be behind when on fifth street. It may take some expereince to keep pot size under control, because there are also ofther factors like profiling, draws, and the community cards themeselves.

Reckon also if you are going to make a raise or re-raise, that the style of opponent you are playing actually has the experience to fold – when they really should be laying it down. I\’ve seen many players in online tournaments look at a fair strength draw on the flop, and resolve to just let it ride. Of course, that\’s going to be a large pot and even though you\’re ahead, you will oftentimes get drawn out and find yourself losing a big hand, or even worse. You really want to avoid this, particularly in the early tournament levels when there is no reason to become short stacked save for a huge suck out, when the blinds are so low.

Pot size also affects your reads, and how accurately you can put your opponent on a hand. if a pot is large and your opponent is calling you can be reasonably sure they are holding something of value (or maybe they are just a calling station!) Larger pots will be tempting for many players, but the added risks involved mean extra possibilities for bluffing with a less than ideal hand.

Now that leads to the most significant advantage of controlling the size of the pot, which is that you get to see all five cards on the board before you really decide what to do in terms of your hand strength and your opponent\’s propensity to make an error. Potential draws or paired boards exhibit themselves to dangerous spots but could either turn into big hand for you or help you slow down and save you some tournament chips.

Managing the pot size needs emotional discipline, effective profiling, and an experienced understanding of community card texture. Conversely, it is one of the most common misplays your adversaries will be making, and presents an lucrative opportunity for you to double up.

Learn new poker strategies and tactics at YouTube poker videos, learn about the best deals and promotions, articles, strategies and get up to $600 deposit bonuses at http://www.best-poker-sites.net.

Visit Rakeback Solution for the best Rakeback rates and Rakeback Promotions.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Poker | No Comments »

Rush Poker – Strategies For Full Tilt\’s New Poker Format

Monday, January 25th, 2010

There\’s a new form of poker online and it\’s causing a storm in the online world. Rush poker as it\’s known is a creation of Full Tilt poker and is designed from the ground up to make online poker more fun, with less waiting. and more action.

Rush poker is usually played as no limit Texas Hold\’em and the game is played as normal apart from one important difference; as soon as you fold your hand you\’re moved to a new seat, and dealt new cards. No more folding preflop and waiting for 8 other people to play out a hand. Now if you fold, even before the action gets to you, you see a new hand within seconds. In fact, players are now able to play 300, 400, even 500 or more hands per hour without having to multi-table!

Of course every variation to the game of poker requires its own strategy, and rush poker is no different. First of all, you\’ll need to make your pre-flop decisions based more on the cards and the action, rather than any reads on the players since you\’ll have only been sitting at the table for a few seconds. Since players will be folding most rags, you can assume that usually players have two high cards, or a pocket pair, and sometimes suited connectors or Ax.

You\’ll also find that since players are so fold-happy you can win lots of hands simply by raising and reraising. Your opponents are more likely to fold a marginal hand than usual, because they know it won\’t be long before they have a better hand. Take advantage of that, and keep the pressure on!

Rush poker is fun, sleek, and I\’m sure it\’s here to stay. Because you\’ll be seeing so many hands per hour you\’ll learn fast and work out your own favorite strategies for this type of poker very quickly. So log in to Full Tilt, pull up a seat, and feel the rush of this new type of poker!

Visit Best Poker Site, for Rush Poker Videos, poker strategies, articles, videos and bonus codes.

Visit Rakeback Solution for the best Rakeback rates and Rakeback Promotions.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Poker | No Comments »

Playing Poker Against Awful Players

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

Playing poker against stupid players should be lucrative, but do you often find yourself losing to players who have no idea of what they are doing? This can be a deep frustration for players that are serious about improving their own game.

Of course they are likely new players too, but you should have the advantage because you read all the good poker authors, paid for membership training, watched a few videos and managed your bankroll sensibly well. The problem is that your bankroll is at best, unimpressive. You might in fact analyze your poker bankroll and become disappointed at its lack of development.

Let\’s come to terms with this, horrible bad beats are going to happen to you and they are usually at the hands of these types players. Now obviously, they did not invest in training time like you did and as a result have a very different view of poker than you do. They will not be playing in a fashion that can make any sense to you. At least you figured out that they don\’t recognize what they\’re doing, and that\’s truly all you require to start getting their money. It\’s best to try and avoid these players unless you have a quality hand that you can value that against them. There are definitely strategies to use against these players while not putting your own stack at high chance against them.

Controlling the pot size. Unless you have the nuts or a very good hand you want to be able to play against players like this while keeping the pot small until you are positive you have the winner. If you can\’t do this it\’s best to stay out of the pot completely. When you know you\’re strong then you have to value bet when you\’ll get paid off by the second-best hand.

Don\’t play the hand. This will be more difficult because you will frequently have a better starting hand than your weak opponent, and folding is always tough. However this is going to keep you out of guessing games and preserve your stack for a more profitable spot.

Add the patience factor to your game. When you do this, he will certainly give it back to you – but wait, it may NOT in fact be him, but another loser just like him. That is why you want players like this at your table so you can use your skills against them.

Playing positiion profitably. The concept is to strictly avoid out of position plays against weak players that often minraise with no forethought, and allow other players to reraise the limpers. You need to see very cheap flops against this player and make them pay when you hit one.

Avoid bluffing. Poker half-wits cannot comprehend that they may not have the greatest hand, no matter how bad the board texture is against them. Do not, I repeat do not try to bluff players who do not figure the strength of their hand.

Rope a donkey by the tail. Once you do get a lousy player in the good situation, then you need to do your best to trap him for all his money. He may want to bluff you, but he may also call a lot off too. You need to know what kind of fool he is by profiling.

Nobody likes to lose pots to awful poker players and every lost pot has heartache associated with it. Just remember you are a stronger player, and you know how to get chips from them in the right time and right hand.

Visit Best Poker Sites for articles, videos and reviews of the best online poker rooms, and get exclusive poker bonus codes up to 300% of your initial deposit!

Visit Rakeback Solution for the best Rakeback rates and Rakeback Promotions.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Poker | No Comments »

Improving Your Poker

Monday, December 21st, 2009

The first step towards becoming a player who does not merely build his poker ego on baseless arrogance and luck or a player who never deviates from a few set rules in order to stay safe against better players, the first step to becoming a good player is to realize that there is always room to improve. Poker is a game of introspection as much as a game of skill, luck, or of “reading” opponents. You must first decide whether or not you want to take the winding way of the tireless perfectionist (who never achieves his goal) in the first place. Then you want to learn to be frank with yourself and define precisely your current strengths and weaknesses.

Besides bad amateurs and those playing by a fixed set of simple rules, there are those players who discover they actually have a talent, but who do not then try to improve much in any direction. These are rather lazy and uninspired players who prefer to hope that they will eventually knock their opponents out cold every time with one or two great moves.

A good player never neglects his weaknesses. Usually nobody is good at every aspect of any complex activity, but to rely on one or two superior skills is dangerous and is more likely to be your ruin in the long run. Once opponents have singled out what you do best, and that it is about the only thing you do, they will maneuver around your good hand. And if they are good players, they will consistently execute the maneuver even if it means giving up a they own good hand, so to speak, to land you one on the nose form the direction you hope it will never come. Because their skills are better rounded than yours, they can afford it, feeling confident enough with both their right and their left.

No boxer ever boxed with just one hand. Hone your best qualities, but do keep sharpening as many of the other required abilities as you can. The next step towards progressive improvement after you recognize your weaknesses is to learn to do that which, as Bartleby the scrivener would say, “you would rather not to.”

To learn this takes two basic things: to realize that a game isn’t worth it unless you intend to win and to acquire a disciplined habit of doing things you dislike. The first may be a subtle point. Some people mechanically try to acquire a habit without know why they are doing it and they eventually give up or don’t get far. You must see that to blindly follow a routine or to rely on a single great skill in the blind hope that you will not have to deal with the rest of the game is not engaging the game for real.

The thing to do is to imagine as well as you can what it would be like to be a fully competent player, imagine the rush of inspiration which leads to success and hard-won triumph, and decide for yourself whether the possibility pleases you or not. If you can’t imagine the triumph and glowing detail of the struggle than be frank with yourself and admit that you have no real idea how to succeed in the field. But if imagining this makes you passionate, start working hard and you will definitely see results, and the effort to work at things you don’t like (perhaps you are an introvert technician who might benefit from better communication skills and face-reading abilities, etc) is guaranteed to be rewarding.

Visit Rakeback Solution for the best Rakeback rates and Rakeback Promotions.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Holdem, Limit Holdem, Poker | No Comments »

Newer Entries »